Are you a frustrated Samsung customer? Annoyed by the lack of 4K content outside of Netflix? Well, DirecTV has your back, sorta. DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) is partnering up with Samsung (KRX: 005930) to release a bunch of UHD content for any and all Samsung 4K TVs released in 2014. These TVs already have DirecTV built into them and do not require a receiver be directly connected to them in order for them to receive TV service.

The real big deal here is not the built-in DirecTV service, which has been available for quite some time, but rather the fact that now DirecTV will be serving 4K video through their DirecTV Genie HD DVR devices to Samsung TVs in glorious 4K. This service currently only offers 19 films to consumers in UHD. Many of the films are remastered in 4K, but that doesn’t change the fact that Samsung’s 4K portfolio was close to nil when they launched these 4K TVs. Sony was the only place you could really get access to a sizable library of 4K content as Samsung only included 5 movies in their Samsung UHD Video Pack on a 1TB hard drive with their curved UHD TVs earlier this year.

Thankfully for Samsung owners, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) already offers a pretty sizable library of 4K content including both House of Cards and Breaking Bad as well as a few remastered movies and nature films. The expectation is that Netflix’s library will continue to increase in order to stay competitive with all other streaming services and Amazon who will inevitably do the same. If you consider how fast 4K is gaining adoption, there’s a very good chance that if cable providers don’t get on the 4K bandwagon quickly they will be left behind by the streaming providers that are finding a way to deliver 4K to consumers quickly and effectively. There is already talk of Comcast’s 4K video service, which will also supposedly launch on Samsung first, but it remains to be seen if that will use Comcast internet service or Comcast cable service.

The 4K content wars are heating up, but most of the studios and Blu-Ray are still missing. The studios are missing a huge opportunity to capitalize on the high price of 4K TVs and use that to their advantage to charge higher prices for 4K mastered content. The biggest problem is that Hollywood seems uninterested in launching 4K content even though the market is starving for it globally. So, as a result, a lot of older content is getting remastered. And the interesting thing is, if you look at the newer content that is doing well and already 4K ready like Breaking Bad or House of Cards that is because both productions took production into their own hands and did things their own way. As a result, both of them shot their entire productions in 4K and are the premiere content for Netflix 4K.

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We’re not really sure what would possess someone to defend one of the most hated companies in America, but Forbes contributor Gene Marks went ahead and did just that. He claims not to be a shill of Comcast in any way shape or form (even though they’ve been shown to pay for positive pieces). They also recently cancelled a promotional event at a legislator’s house, the same legislator that proposed a bill in Kansas to block municipal broadband after the Kansas City Star contacted them about the event. Comcast has also made sure that their lobbying efforts are strong and effective as they’ve effectively got every important Senator and Representative of the Congress on their payroll. For example, 84 of the 97 congressmen that approved the Comcast and NBC merger received money from Comcast. The amounts range from token contributions of about $1,000 up to $25,100. Additionally, Comcast has spent over $3.2 million in 2012 (last data available) among federal candidates alone (does not count state or local) for lobbying. During the 2012 election, Comcast gave Obama’s campaign over $328,000 and Romney’s campaign nearly $100,000. Yet again proving how much our politicians are really in their pockets.

Now, getting back to Gene Marks’ so-called 5 reasons to admire Comcast, of which there are only really four (Sorry, Jimmy Fallon doesn’t count). So what are exactly his reasons?

• Comcast is a tech company that has improved the lives of its customers.

Really? Comcast has improved the lives of their customers? That explains why they’re the second most hated cable company in America, right? Because they improve people’s lives. I’m sure people hate their doctors, teachers and librarians as much, too. Yet, Comcast is considered one of the most hated companies in America (not even among cable companies, ALL companies). Not the banks, not the carriers, not the oil companies, the cable companies are the most hated and Comcast is easily in contention for the #1 place.

Cable Satisfaction

• Comcast technology is reliable.

He may actually have somewhat of a point here, while Comcast like many ISPs may have a lot of haters, places like DSLReports appear to support the fact that Comcast is fairly reliable. But it doesn’t change the fact that many customers absolutely loathe the company. Including people like Ryan Block who tried to cancel his service and was met with an agent that almost wouldn’t let him cancel.

• Comcast stands behind its employees.

He actually uses the example of Ryan Block’s call as well to talk about how Comcast supported their employee, saying that he was only doing his job. So, Comcast trains their employees to not be helpful and constantly be selling people services they don’t want. If you listen to the call, you can hear how this guy is literally trained to shove Comcast services down the customers’ throats. I don’t really know if this is a valid point, especially when Gene himself mentions all of the Comcast employees that complain about their jobs (and then questions their validity).

• Comcast is a ruthless, competitive, take no prisoners tech company…and good for them.

Gene is partly right here, but he forgets why they are the way they are. Comcast is fairly ruthless, yes, ruthless to their competitors, ruthless to the politicians that don’t support them, and ruthless to their own customers. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of ruthless I want to support. Oh, and the competitive part? Who the hell is Comcast competing with? They’ve effectively got local monopolies in most of the areas they serve. If they’re not the only choice in the area, they’re probably the 2nd choice and the other choice is very likely AT&T which is no better than Comcast in any way (and is usually more expensive). Comcast can only be competitive if you look at the networks they own, which include all of NBCUniversal’s holdings which are numerous and even that acquisition is questionable considering how many people were opposed to it and how many people still believe it was not a justified acquisition.

Hey, maybe it was all just clickbait, but in the end supporting a company like Comcast is simply unjustified, especially when you consider what they’re doing to companies like Netflix. Comcast really really wants to acquire Time Warner Cable and it seems as though they will do whatever possible to make that happen. Meanwhile they will essentially become the de facto internet provider for over 30 million Americans and further stifle competition where there already was very little. So, please do tell us why we should admire Comcast, because it only really seems like there’s one reason to and that’s because their reliable and last time I checked that’s not really good enough.

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Ryan Block tried to cancel his Comcast service recently and the Comcast representative simply would not let him do so without explaining why he’s leaving. The Comcast rep was completely unresponsive and employed sales tactics that have been used many times before to keep people from leaving their companies. With Comcast already behaving a lot like AOL did back in the internet’s early years, this kind of experience could become even more common as Comcast and Time Warner Cable are set to merge. This episode is yet another example of why a company like Comcast should not ever be allowed to acquire any of their competitors, especially their next biggest competitor in Time Warner Cable.

As you can tell, the Comcast representative simply was not heeding the customers’ requests whatsoever and was clearly on a mission (either as a result of his training or from his manual) to figure out why Ryan was leaving Comcast. Such behavior can only be described as anti-competitive and anti-consumer as it does nothing other than bully the consumer into coming back to the company (or never leaving). Comcast also uses some pretty ridiculous claims in the call to try to convince Ryan to stay with them including some of their internet speed claims. They offer 105 Mbps internet speeds, however Google and Time Warner Cable already offer speeds of 300 Mbps and 1 Gbps which are far faster than anything Comcast has offered any consumer, ever.

Such tactics are shameful and Comcast should be forced to answer for such behavior. No matter what happens in the Time Warner Cable and Comcast merger, this needs to be investigated thoroughly by the FTC and FCC.

The post Listen: Cancelling Comcast is Like Pulling Teeth appeared first on VR World.

Nearly 650,000 people have left comments on the FCC’s website regarding their proposed Net Neutrality rules, which were proposed roughly 2 months ago. The comments have been open since May 15th, and will be closed on July 15th, likely with over 650,000 comments on the topic, many of which are criticizing the FCC for not taking a strong enough stance to protect consumers. The FCC’s very own Chairman Tom Wheeler even tweeted about the milestone on Friday, reminding people to continue to leave their comments.

We’ve received about 647k #netneutrality comments so far. Keep your input coming — 1st round of comments wraps up July 15.

— Tom Wheeler (@TomWheelerFCC) July 11, 2014

If you still wish to give the FCC your two cents on Net Neutrality, then you just need to add your comment to the heap here and tell them what you think. They are supposedly going to read every single one of these comments, which I don’t necessarily believe or think to be possible considering the flood that the FCC got. They rarely get anyone commenting with most topics only getting comments in the hundreds and very rarely in the thousands. However, people are becoming more aware of the FCC’s comment system and as a result, thousands have also commented on the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable as well.

Such issues regarding Net Neutrality must be addressed as soon as possible because there are certain carriers like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile that threaten to destroy Net Neutrality with their own programs that seek to enrich them and their partners. Sure, some of them are designed to make consumers happier, like T-Mobile’s free music streaming, but they still ultimately pick winners and losers without letting the apps have a level playing field on their network.

After this comment period, the FCC will supposedly reconvene and attempt to readdress these concerns at which point they may come out with new proposed rule making guidelines and then open themselves for another round of comments. This is a very long and protracted process, but people that care about the freedom of the internet should not be discouraged. Hopefully the FCC will realize how much people care and they won’t simply bend to the will of the large ISPs and carriers like their predecessors.

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Time Warner Cable is rolling out one of the fastest internet speeds available in the country today next month. Our sources have been indicating to us that Time Warner Cable has been in the process of rolling out a 200/300 Mbps service in the San Diego area. They already offer 100 Mbps to new customers, but many of those people will get upgraded to Time Warner Cable’s 300 Mbps service which is one of the fastest in the country. Keep in mind that this 300 Mbps service is still only over cable, so it can’t compete with Google’s 1 Gbps fiber service or the uploads that it or any fiber service can offer. But even so, moving from a 50/5 Mbps plan to a 300/20 Mbps plan for exactly the same price, nobody is going to complain about that. Additionally, this could be yet another one of Time Warner Cable’s justifications that a Comcast merger is okay because they are upgrading customers and not remaining stagnant. All of this will also help Time Warner Cable pump up their image in the eyes of the FCC who sees very little progress in terms of ISPs improving their speeds even though customers keep paying for faster and faster speeds by moving up through more expensive tiers.

As it stands right now, Time Warner Cable offers Ultimate 100 Mbps service for $64.99, Extreme 30 Mbps service for $54.99 a month, Turbo 20 Mbps service for $44.99 a month and Standard service for $34.99 a month. There’s also Basic at 3 Mbps for $29.99 a month and Everyday Low Price 2 Mbps for $14.99 a month. If you look at the current price structure, Time Warner Cable’s pricing only really makes sense at the high end with a 3x increase in speed costing you only $10 a month more.

However, with the new speed structures Ultimate customers will be getting 300/20 Mbps for $64.99 a month while Extreme customers will pay $54.99 a month for 200/20 Mbps speeds. We don’t know what will happen to the lower tiers, but I would expect that the Turbo customers may actually see 100 Mbps depending on what kind of a modem they have. Below that, I would expect to see Standard probably get upgraded to 30 Mbps, effectively doubling the speeds and we’d probably see basic come up to 10 Mbps to satisfy what will likely be a modified definition of Broadband by the FCC.

Time Warner Cable 300 Mbps modem compatibility

However, in order to get these 200 Mbps and 300 Mbps speeds from Time Warner Cable users will have to upgrade from their current models to the currently unavailable. The only modem that Time Warner Cable currently has on their approved list is the Arris (formerly Motorola) Surfboard SB6183. This modem is capable of 16×4 bonded channels which means it can do a maximum of 600 Mbps download and about 150 Mbps upload (theoretically). However, realistically users on Time Warner Cable will expect to see speeds of 300/20 Mbps download/upload with this modem. It has also been incredibly difficult to find any of these modems anywhere and the only place I saw any of them for sale was on eBay and surprisingly it was sold from someone in San Diego, likely testing out this new service in the area.

Needless to say, we’re very excited for this service to roll out over the course of the next month and will hopefully swap out our current SB6580 for one of these since we only use it in bridge mode as it is already as many users that have TWC’s Ultimate tier of service already do. However, if you don’t want to go out and get this modem, you should be able to still get 100 Mbps from Time Warner Cable’s service with nearly all of their approved modems.

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Lately, there has been a lot of talk about ISPs (internet service providers) with the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable as well as all of the Net Neutrality legislation and news going around. In this era of essentially no competition among internet service providers, many customers are generally stuck with 2, maybe 3 choices for internet service in their area, which is actually worse than the current state of wireless which is also essentially an oligopoly.

In most places, you have the choice between some sort of cable TV provider that also provides internet service and a telephone provider, usually being Comcast, Time Warner or Cox on the cable side and AT&T on the telephone side either with a DSL service or U-Verse. Now, in some areas you have none of these choices and you’re stuck with either dial-up from some local phone operator or you have to shell out tons of money a month for satellite internet from Hughesnet (owned by Echostar, parent company of DISH). The problem with this service is that it offers speeds of 15 Mbps/2 Mbps down/up for $130 a month, which is about triple what land line operators charge, AND they cap users at 40 GB a month of data. And the company is touting these speeds as “15x faster than before” which makes this all the more ridiculous.

Also, if you want internet service from say Time Warner Cable, you would be forced to pay $35 a month (promotional for 12 months), which will eventually come to $40 or $45 a month. This service will get you 15/1 Mbps down/up and unlimited bandwidth, unlike some of their competitors, AT&T. They also have a fairly new 100 Mbps download service which they sell for $70 a month that only has 5 Mbps upload.

AT&T on the other hand, offers an 18 Mbps service for $45 a month which is about the same as Time Warner Cable, but also requires a 1 year contract and will go up after the promotional price ends. Their fastest service that they offer is 45 Mbps for $65 a month, but this is slower than what Time Warner Cable used to offer at 50 Mbps, but now offers for 100 Mbps.

Now that we’ve shown a small bit of how ridiculous the current ISP climate is in the US, we wanted to talk about an ISP that we recently heard about. This ISP is called Webpass and they’re a very small internet service provider, but they serve urban customers in San Francisco, San Diego and Miami. Their model is to deploy to a single building or complex and to get a large deployment of customers at once in order to make their capex (capital expenditures) worthwhile.

What makes Webpass so great is not just their unbelievably fast speeds, but also their reasonable prices and their commitment to Net Neutrality. Webpass offers their internet to consumers for $55 a month or $500 a year, whichever they wish to pay. Granted, if you pay for a full year of service upfront, you also save $160 over the course of that year. What does $55 get you? It gets you a jack anywhere in your apartment or condo that delivers a minimum of a 100/100 Mbps symmetrical line and in some areas a 200/200 line depending on the neighborhood and building.

Here’s a video of how it works:
So, not only is Webpass incredibly fast and cheap, it is also incredibly easy because you no longer have to deal with a modem anymore. You only need to have a router and any network connectivity beyond your router are immediately Webpass’ problem. This also removes one of the potential factors for messing up an internet connection and makes the overall process smoother and easier.

But if their price, speed and simplicity weren’t enough they are also very principled in how they treat their customers’ data. They specifically state in their net net neutrality policy that they will or will not do the following 6 things:

1. Our customers pay us to deliver the entire Internet.

2. All packets are treated equally. Exceptions are made for violating the acceptable use policy or activity we deem malicious.

3. We do not accept payment from content providers to increase the prioritization of their packets or to decrease the prioritization of a competitor’s packets.

4. We do not pay content providers to deliver service to our network.

5. We adjust our peering relationships often to provide the best routes possible to our customers.

6. It is normal for a customer’s experience with each website to be different. The customer’s experience is a combination of Webpass’ network performance, the destination’s network performance, and the distance to the destination.

So, Webpass is actually an ISP that you can like. Sure, they’re small but more and more ISPs like them are popping up around the country and we need to be able to support them to create competition where we likely will only get less if we stick with the big cable companies. Unfortunately, the process for getting Webpass in your building or complex is much more difficult than it should be, but they also need to preserve their profitability and need to be able to pay off their investment and be sure they will get a substantial commitment from residents. I have personally requested to get Webpass at my residence but have yet to hear back from them, after all, it isn’t entirely my decision.

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In an attempt to placate the FCC, DoJ, FTC and basically every government agency on earth against their acquisition of Time Warner Cable, Comcast has announced that they will be divesting 3.9 million subscribers from the potential Comcast-TimeWarnerCable merger. This new announcement is a huge farce on the part of Comcast attempting to make it look like they’re seriously divesting from certain markets and giving subscribers to Charter. When in reality this new deal they are proposing actually muddies the waters further than a straight Comcast-TimeWarner acquisition and lines Comcast up for a quiet re-acquisition of those 3.9 million subscribers as well as “New Charter” which will be a new version of the current Charter Communications that will be eastablished to enable this deal.

Time Warner will divest 1.4 million of their video subscribers to “New Charter” which will 100% own the old Charter and 33% of the “SpinCo” which is going to be a publicly traded company that will take on the 2.5 million video subscribers that Comcast has “divested” from, even though 77% of that “SpinCo” remains to be accounted for by Comcast and how much of that remainder they will own. They also haven’t said how much they will be selling these divested customers to the “New Charter” for nor how much of a stake in SpinCo they will have, which i suspect will be bigger than anyone wants to believe. I suspect that Comcast will take a fairly large share of this new “SpinCo” even though Charter will be contracted to operate it and hold 33% of the shares.

This is all being done by Comcast to reduce their overall subscriber base numbers to levels that make them appear smaller and less monopolistic even though the land line internet services are much more important to us and the future of the company. They are not talking about internet subscribers whatsoever but rather video subscribers, which, if you remove 3.9 million from a unified Comcast-Time Warner merger, would bring the new company down from about 33 million to  28 million, a mere drop in the bucket of around 11%. This is merely a symbolic gesture on the part of Comcast to placate the regulators that say that Comcast and Time Warner Cable need to divest in order to be able to move forward with the acquisition. In my eyes, no divestment is good enough to allow the two companies to merge, especially knowing Comcast’s behavior with competitors like Netflix. And the weirdest part is that their plan to divest of the 3.9 million video subscribers would ultimately create Charter as the second biggest cable operator in the nation after Comcast-Time Warner Cable and they would have a pretty significant hand/stake in that venture’s creation, meaning that they wouldn’t have much trouble gobbling it up if they felt like it.

All of this stinks really badly and I simply don’t see how consumers stand to benefit from this acquisition whatsoever. Sure, it furthers Comcast’s thirst for acquisition, more subscribers and more growth as well as Time Warner Cable’s desire to be bought out by someone bigger so that they can move on from their ‘skimpy’ profits. It also satisfies Charter’s desires to expand as they were once a suitor of Time Warner Cable, prior to Comcast, and now they get 1.4 million of Time Warner Cable’s subscribers AND they also get to manage 2.5 million of Comcast’s ‘SpinCo’ new cable operator entity. So, yes, the companies will be happy, but they will ultimately screw the customers more than anything else and this complicated deal serves no real benefit other than scale to Comcast. Their plans to divest are merely a bone to throw to the regulators so that the regulators can say that Comcast made an effort to be ‘fair’ and balance out the market power across the market even though Comcast + Time Warner Cable would still be more than 4 times bigger after the plan to divest as their next biggest cable competitor.

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